Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

I should’ve gone with “bloated sack of protoplasm” smh.

re riots: the lampposts around here have had nov 5th march on government stickers on them for a while, done by the same people who bought you the anti-vax and anti-un stickers. just a time and date and oblig guy fawkes mask on them and a bunch of links to c0v1dtrvth5.com etc. i wonder if their plans have changed? or if more than 5 people and a dog will turn up.

(also other stickers saying THE TRUTH WILL SHOCK YOU + a QR code are also available)

rude

xp

You know I’m joking right? Probably doesn’t need to be said but just in case.

Reading this thread now worse than reading the UK edition of the Guardian.

Dear Moran,

I’m having a swell time here at the insane asylum. It would be nice if you could come and visit me sometime. Wish you could read.

(That was also an allusion.)

https://media.tenor.com/s6HXPT_n5a4AAAAM/ok-thumbs-up.gif

Reading this thread now worse than reading the UK edition of the Guardian.

― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Saturday, 22 October 2022 bookmarkflaglink

UK Pol chat is popular across the board.

Many ppl are saying this.

huge numbers

James just posted? Wow. I didn’t know that. You are telling me now for the first time. He made some amazing posts. What else can you say. Whether you agreed or not, he was an amazing poster who made some amazing posts. I am actually sad to hear that. I am sad to hear that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYcyacLRPNs

"I'd prefer it if they targeted shitty art only of the Damien Hirst variety"

I realise I'm replying to something from a week and several political aeons ago, but I remember seeing this in a department store when I went to Hong Kong back in 2019:
https://i.imgur.com/gdS0DiW.jpg

I was dimly aware that Hirst had made a crystal skull but I wasn't aware he had a full range of branded perfume bottles and paperweights. I remember wondering what the rich people of China thought about him. In the UK he is a legendary art icon and one of the most widely-beloved public figures of the 1990s - this is true (SOLVED) (2022) - but did the rich people of China read Ray Gun in the 1990s? Why should they be aware of him?

The odd thing is that media coverage of the collaboration seems weirdly timid. After Googling it the only report I could find in an actual newspaper was this, which is essentially a press release:
https://observer.com/2015/07/damien-hirst-lends-his-quirky-touch-to-this-127-year-old-glass-company/

You'd think there would be loads of "this is a pile of cack / he is creatively bankrupt" editorials, but no. Is it too obvious to criticise Damien Hirst for partnering with a jewellery firm? Is it just that he isn't as famous as he used to be? Even the coverage of his recent art-burning-NFT thing has been muted.

i doubt they read ray gun lol but rich ppl everywhere have always enjoyed paying for fancy and expensive art, especially when it's gleaming and show-offy!

so im guessing rich ppl in china are very likely not wildly different? they read glossy investment mags which tell them what art to buy into

ps my entire guide to what rich ppl in china are like is this mainland-chinese netflix police procedural: luxury, criminal decadence, martial-arts cops and profiling on the streets of the people's republic of china: WHEN A SNAIL FALLS IN LOVE

in conclusion they like to murder one another (just like rich ppl in the UK per poirot etc)

"In the UK he is a legendary art icon and one of the most widely-beloved public figures of the 1990s"

I do not believe that these statements are true.

They feel a bit overegged, or referring to a specific audience, yes

But I'd say the YBAs' star has declined since the 90s anyway

Yeah, beloved by whom? Recognisable, but beloved?

renowned art critic Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics considers him a genius ...lol

Some YBAs - Gillian Wearing, Georgina Starr, Jane and Louise Wilson, Mark Wallinger, Yinka Shonibare, Richard Billingham- go from strength to strength as serious artists. Hirst, not so much.

That sounds right Suzy, I suppose I mean as a group

what happened to Sarah Lucas?

Yeah, beloved by whom? Recognisable, but beloved?

The poster in question has a track record of making similarly bizarre statements.

‘Beloved’ is same level horrible-ness as ‘national treasure’ and ‘one of the good guys ‘, and just above the excruciating ‘he’s good people’.

xp yes we seem to be having a recent and unwelcome uptick of similar bullshit

Observer:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/23/labour-membership-soars-as-party-prepares-to-take-on-failing-tories-in-a-general-election

"Labour membership soars as party prepares to take on failing Tories in a general election

Speed of government collapse prompts a scramble to solve logistical problems and select candidates"

I post that because

1: we know that membership has fallen greatly and a smaller gain is now being misrepresented as "soaring"

2: we know that the selection process is corrupt, malicious and determined by factional power.

Therefore the report reflects on the Observer.

Observer:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/23/labour-membership-soars-as-party-prepares-to-take-on-failing-tories-in-a-general-election🕸

"Labour membership soars as party prepares to take on failing Tories in a general election

Speed of government collapse prompts a scramble to solve logistical problems and select candidates"

Soaring.

In addition: why should those 'senior figures' be trusted?

They cannot be trusted with anything else.

They have a political motivation to misrepresent the numbers.

They are not named.

No official source is given.

In fact actual numbers of Labour members has been elusive for a long time. People who leave (like me) often still receive contact as if they were members.

I don't doubt that numbers may have risen somewhat, after a large fall.

I do say that citing ballpark figures from 'senior figures' is not responsible journalism.

precision abt total membership -- inc.those corbyn highs -- is iirc rendered somewhat foggier and soggier by the quality of the counting tho (which the piece does not broach)

i: there's a known lag between non-payment and actually being struck off the list (tbf literally all parties do this, w/the SWP it was often like three decades lol; but if it's anything longer than a year then it will deliver questionable results
ii: wasn't there a *massive* data-breach and loss fuck-up in this terrtitory like two years ago? actually turning a good deal of the info into a black box of motivated guesswork?

i mean maybe they've got all this stuff on track? but

xpost

sure, not really interested in defending the headline but assuming the headline causes you to read the article the numbers are in the third para.

“source” thing looks to me more like the source is more trying to speed up the process to get a new base, fed up with inaction from the party leadership.

rising membership is good, especially considering lost revenue since corbyn years.

but yes

on membership numbers it’s surely total and utter chaos and who fuckin knows (for example pf’s regular contact)

Numbers are in the 3rd paragraph.

Are they 'the numbers'?

They are the round numbers that 'senior figures say'.

Do you trust 'senior figures' in the Labour Party, and what they say to the Observer?

Mark S is correct -- this is a notoriously foggy area, certainly with recent Labour, if not beyond.

i don’t not trust it! it’s a data point. i’d want to see more info. but i feel v resistant to the “lies all lies” view that you’re implying. that way madness lies.

i have no cape to wear for the observer (l i think it’s trash tbh, and the anti trans platforming is abhorrent) but an increase in labour membership seems on its face reasonable and here are some numbers from what is an undoubtedly muddy data set.

on membership numbers it’s surely total and utter chaos and who fuckin knows (for example pf’s regular contact)

― Fizzles, Sunday, 23 October 2022 bookmarkflaglink

The thing is it should be a fairly easy thing to compile. You could break it down by people who haven't paid subs in a month and over a month etc.

googling around, the data breach took place early last year (2021), it was some kind of ransomeware attack, and it rendered large amounts of information "inaccessible" -- tho i don't think we've ever been told what kind of information, except thst it was in some way "about members"

too vague to know if it's for certain relevant to this issue but nevertheless kind of relevant when numbers are being thrown around? xyz says "it should be fairly easy" etc but the impression i've had is that despite being (you'd think) u&k it's not a part of the task which is well in hand (and that this is part of the reason for the obfuscation: ppl not really doing their jobs well throwing up somescrens to disguise this) (and not necessarily even for sinister reasons)

I can see it as a fuck up of people who were in charge of membership leaving and not being properly replaced. And things like data quality can easily degrade overtime.

I think leaving it to degrade is probably a political decision. Tasks not being done. Or someone saying it's not a priority.

maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for hopefully the rest of my life, the Conservatives will be out of power. I can’t help it. I’m making a mental inventory of things I am looking forward to seeing the back of and then counter-qualities I can’t wait to welcome back into public life.

Won’t it be great when you can assume that someone is telling the truth? When, whatever the promise is, you at least believe they mean it while they’re saying it?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/24/the-tories-will-soon-be-out-of-power-and-i-am-making-a-list-of-all-the-things-i-cant-wait-to-see-the-back-of

Zoe Williams, a journalist, has not noticed that no-one in power in the Labour Party ever tells the truth about anything, or means what they say except when they say that they believe in something that is very bad.

everything that isn't inane bollocks or just wrong is basic shit people were saying 10+ years ago, presented as we only just figured this stuff out

something bothers me so much about the centrality of brexit to these people's worldview, like it's the first time the system didn't work out for them - they talk about it as some kind of ontological error that suddenly made everything false - and they don't even fucking care about the worst parts of it! it's just a symbol of their own irrelevance or something. obviously the whole post-truth thing is a joke coming from people who think politics peaked with tony blair. but what do you expect

David Coleman's best 'Colemanballs' - and those of his inadvertent imitators

"If that had gone in, it would have been a goal."

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/21/david-coleman-s-best-colemanballs

It HAS gotten worse

even i, who don't follow football, understand that the ball can go in and not be a goal (offside, hand ball for two reasons)

There is a 3-part thing about the YBAs on i-player at the moment. Hirst doesn't come out of it terribly well by the final episode (bcs money, bcs Alex from Blur); someone who does - perhaps slightly incongruously - is Anthony Gormley.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/28/m-and-s-high-street-retailer-flagship-store-small-shops

Think I agree.

this guy thinks it's worse

The Guardian used to have balance (moderately left) and integrity, but now it is a far left wing propaganda machine. I hope they get back to where they were one day.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 31, 2022

always the sign of a thoughtful, serious person when you accuse milquetoast liberals of being the far left

I think part of the confusion is that the Guardian does have an interest in what is sometimes called, rightly or wrongly, identity politics. It had that interest before but seems to have it at least as much as ever now.

Some people would say the Guardian's particular angles on these issues are wrong, which is fair enough. But I think this interest may be what leads someone like Musk to think this.

But what Musk cannot see is that the G has zero interest in what is probably more properly called far left, ie: socialism. It is quite staunchly opposed to socialism and has attacked it when it has arisen as a movement.

You could also more simply say that Musk is an idiot. Though I suppose he's the one laughing all the way to the bitcoin bank.

totally agree with the first two lines.

but I don't think musk is an idiot by any means, unfortunately. he's very successful on a metric he cares about. he just doesn't give a single fuck about the guardian or being in any way nuanced or accurate about it. and why would he. it's a form of UK exceptionalism to think that anyone would really give a fuck about the guardian.

but big-brain tweet about it